Monday, August 8, 2011

Hello from the Missionary Training Center

Hey Mom, Dad, Brian, Jocie, Jordan, Chico, friends, family, and anyone else that reads this letter,
 
Things are going well here. I have a few stories to tell.

So, Dad, remember that guy that we met at the gate in El Paso? The Calgary guy? Ok, so I sat behind him on the flight to Denver. We talk for a bit. We get to Denver and went our separate ways. So I go to my gate and am just chilling there when 30 minutes later he comes to my gate. He comes up to me and says "Here, have some lunch." He'd bought me a good sandwich and chips and such. Such a nice guy. Dad, can you remind me of his name?
Then, I'm chilling at the gate for another 30 minutes when a well-dressed young man comes and sits by me. Turns out it's an Elder Erickson from Edmonton (what's with all these Canadians?). We talk and were kinda each other's companions during the flight, where I sat behind him. Our flight was delayed an hour, once because the plane was late, once because of weather in Denver, and again because of weather in Salt Lake.
Moral of those stories: God provides for His missionaries. He made sure I always had a companion of some sort. And he made sure I was well-fed :)

The MTC is awesome! First day was just full of orientations. Met the MTC presidency and stuff like that. Got my black name badge. It's pretty cool. About 500 missionaries came into the MTC that day, the largest number they've had all year. I'm thankful that I forgot the time I had to go into the MTC and we went an hour early because otherwise it would've been a madhouse trying to get everything done.


Spanish classes are going good. I'm the only white guy in our district. I'm used to being the minority. But I think I'm one of the more proficient ones with Spanish. I mean, there are words here and there that I don't know, but overall, I can comprehend it very well.

We taught our first "investigator" yesterday. Daniel Rodriguez is his name. He's a poor man whose father is a member, but he isn't. We taught him the first lesson yesterday and challenged him to be baptized. He wasn't ready yet; he had questions about The Book of Mormon and stuff. And, yeah, it was probably too early for him. But that's one of the things you have to do with the first lesson as the Spirit directs. And I felt like that was something we should do. So, on Monday, we'll be teaching him about the Book of Mormon. And we challenged him to read and pray and stuff like that. We'll see how that goes.

There are a lot of guys from my BYU ward here. It's fun seeing them, catching up a little bit.
There's a guy from the Montana Vista ward here too. Elder Esparza. I didn't know him before I went to the MTC, so it was cool talking to him about things in El Paso. And then there's an Elder Fleming from the westside stake.

Oh, Mom. Remember back in December, Lori Gonzalez's friend that had just put in his papers? And remember how you were wondering if we would ever see each other in the MTC? Well, that's Elder Morga. He's in the Spanish class across the hall from mine and he's in my zone. So, yes, we did see each other.

Wow, I still have 15 more minutes on here.

No, I'm not going through Facebook withdrawals. Or phone withdrawals. Or NCIS withdrawals. Or laptop withdrawals. There's too much to do to have any sort of withdrawals. 

My residence hall is kinda weird. It used to be a girl's residence hall, so we don't have urinals. I have not taken a hot shower since I have been here, because there seems to be no hot water in our building (Budge Hall memories). We're on the fourth floor which is kinda a pain.

We had our first gym time yesterday. We get gym time 5 days a week for one hour. And guess what I did? I played basketball. And guess what I did to myself? I sprained my ankle. So now I'm on crutches, which kinda stinks, but tomorrow I think I'll be good to go. And now I have to do some rehab for my ankle. 

I don't know what else to say on here. I have about 9 more minutes I can think of stuff.

The Spirit is so strong here. I absolutely love it. It's pretty awesome.

Other than that I don't have too many other experiences. Normally, I will write on Thursdays while I'm here at the MTC because that's my normal P-Day. Today's a half P-Day for us.

Copy and paste this letter on my blog and post the link to my Facebook please. That way other of my friends can now what I'm doing and I don't have to write 20 million letters. Because, you know, I have 20 million friends.

Looks like my laundry is almost done. I think I might've accidentally put my red shirt with all my white shirts. So Mom, ugh, we might have a problem. Just kidding.

I'll try and take pictures. I've taken a grand total of one picture because there just isn't time. And I'll send them when I get to California.

Love you guys.
 
Elder Nathan Gruenewald
 
Mi proposito como misionero: Invitar a las personas a venir a Cristo al ayudarlas a que reciban el Evangelio restaurado mediante de la fe en Jesucristo y Su expiacion, el arrepentimiento, el bautismo, y el perservar hasta el fin.

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